Smart Company Project:
Hospital Logistics

Hospital Logistics ensures that healthcare institutions can focus on their core task of administering care to their patients. Hospital Logistics provides everything needed to optimally fulfil this job. This ranges from consolidated purchasing through stock management and picking & packing for all sterile and non-sterile medical consumables to in-house delivery and administrative processing at departmental level. Hospital Logistics helps healthcare institutions devise and implement the most optimal integrated process from supplier to patient.

What was needed?

Hospital Logistics asked for an application that facilitates the ordering process of products. Healthcare workers have to be able to easily and quickly replenish their department’s stock of consumable goods (e.g. syringes, masks, gloves…).

The second thing Hospital Logistics asked for was a web shop. A specific web environment where all of Hospital Logistics’ products are displayed. On this web shop clients have to be able to order certain products (not just the ones their department needs) in larger quantities and across departments.

What Sirus provided

Sirus developed the Kanban application in collaboration with Continuum. This app remembers the stock of every department (what are the exact quantities of a product needed in a specific department). Subsequently, when someone of a particular department places an order to refill a product, the app knows exactly how much to supply. By scanning a barcode, the stock of the product that had run out is automatically supplemented.

Throughout the project Sirus realised the Kanban application and web shop could be intertwined. Both systems are combined in Appsuite and use the same service and backend, but with different specifications and interfaces. The ordering process is different but the underlying flow is the same. Eventually, combining the Kanban application with the web shop also resulted in a time and efficiency gain for the project.

Technicalities of the project

Environment:

Progressive Web Application
Azure Servicebus
Azure Serverless services
MSSQL
Docker Services
Keycloak

Components:

Frameworks:

Angular
.NET Core 3.1/ .NET 5.0
EF Core
Ms test

Tooling:

Azure Cloud Services
Azure Devops

Timeline

Planning

First, we looked at how we were going to build these applications. Which pieces of functionality needed to be built and how do they operate towards each other?
Then we looked at what the customer was asking for and whether their request was the best solution or if we had a different solution in mind.

The first steps

What are the priorities? Which are the first important steps to take? While Sirus focused on the Backend development, Continuum worked on creating the optimal user interface. By presenting the end user with a clickable design first before developing the complete platform, both teams were able to directly incorporate the customer’s feedback when creating the final web and app interface.

Designing a roadmap

By following a clear roadmap everything runs according to schedule. By logically following the steps and building the platform, mistakes are avoided.

Estimate the duration of the project

In order to estimate the duration of the project a critical path diagram was designed. This scheme determines which steps need to be followed and how the different features are related to each other. An MVP was distilled from this critical path: when will there be enough features to go live?

Offer support

- We remain present if further questions arise.
- We foresee expansions of the project in the future.
- We continue to serve as a sounding board and listen to the customer’s needs.

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What’s next?

Even though the primary demand of the company has been met, Sirus still has a lot of possible innovations and expansions up its sleeve. As an example, the app can also be opened up to consumers (B2C) instead of only to companies (B2B). Providing special promotions for consumers adds a meaningful functionality to the app. As for wat follows, we will also provide an overview of all deliveries. In short, we continue to look at further customer requirements and how to implement these solutions in the existing platform.

What our Sirus’ members think about the case

“For me, the setup in Azure was the most challenging. I knew a lot about it, but I hadn’t really put the theory into practice yet. And now we added those Docker containers in Azure, another thing I hadn’t practiced yet. So that made this project very challenging and interesting.” – Sam

“One of the best things I take with me from this project is the day when Thomas – the contact person at HL – took us through the hall and showed us what we were working for. We could really see how Hospital Logistics processes the orders and then prepares those deliveries. You’re not normally involved with that. You come into a hospital and the plasters, wipes and syringes are all there, but you don’t realize it all comes from the same warehouse in Aarschot. It’s nice to see the business behind it. I always like to have a project where you really see what you’re doing. It’s different than developing an application without knowing its purpose.” – Tim

“For me, it was one of the first projects I really worked for as a full-time architect. Being a full-time architect for once was really fun.”– Tim

“As a Junior profile, everything is a challenge for me. But thanks to Tim’s and Sam’s expertise there was a solution to every problem and I liked working together towards one goal.” – Valentin

“We make clear arrangements with the Sirus team. And it almost seems like we are colleagues working in different companies. So, the whole collaboration feels natural and works perfectly.” – The Continuum Team

What the client thinks about the case

“I am really satisfied with this project. The Sirus and Continuum team really put a lot of effort in this case. We had worked with Continuum before when they mentioned to bring in Sirus for the backend development of the webshop and Kanban application. They turned out to be the right partner for this job.

For me it was important that the team knew what our business was about. When the Sirus’ team members came over I showed them around our company and explained what our stock includes, what sort of products we deliver and how our service is organized. I could see that they were genuinely interested in our business. I noticed a clear difference between before this company tour and after. When they were able to see the “consumables” we provide to healthcare facilities, they gained a clear understanding of what they were building the application for.

This understanding helped them, and us, to create the optimal user interface, software architecture and underlying framework tailored to the customer and our needs.

Another positive element of this collaboration is that both teams (Sirus and Continuum) remained present during the aftermath of the launch. When we were presenting this system to one of our customers and a discrepancy came up, they immediately sorted out a solution not to inconvenience the users. I appreciate the Sirus team’s continued support.

I hope to continue this efficient cooperation with Sirus and I am certain that more projects will follow in the future.”

Thomas Havermans, IT Manager at Hospital Logistics